[Vera Politica]

I did a paper on this not too long ago. Liberalism has always been a theory adopted onto an underlying 'possessive individualism' where rights are derived from property right, that is ownership over yourself.

However, if we look back to Locke, in order to justify natural property rights, he claimed the duty of self-preservation. This duty is entailed because all individuals are PROPERTY OF GOD, and therefore do not have the right to dispose of themselves.

In a word, classical liberal theory derived civil rights from property rights from an obligation to god.

Where do you derive such ciivil rights?

[Zyx]

Give some examples of impinged upon right.

[Vera Politica]

I'm not too sure what you mean....

Liberal theory is a contractarian theory, and all rights derived in civil society are a measure of natural property right, the duty of self-preservation which comes from the fact that we are all properties of god.

These can be any and all rights: the right to free speech, freedom of religion, etc. All are a function of possessive individualism, all derived from an obligation to god.

In a word, without god, Liberalism is a colossal philosophical failure.

[Todd D.]

However, if we look back to Locke, in order to justify natural property rights, he claimed the duty of self-preservation. This duty is entailed because all individuals are PROPERTY OF GOD, and therefore do not have the right to dispose of themselves.

In a word, classical liberal theory derived civil rights from property rights from an obligation to god.

I've always found the opposite to be an easier explanation. In the ABSENCE of God, who owns me? The answer is obviously myself, therefore the concept of non-intervention on self-ownership is far easier to justify.

With "God owns you", it's far easier to infringe upon those rights, especially if the faith holds a strong voice in politics, by saying "God told me that this was justified".

[Maxim Litvinov]

I've always found the opposite to be an easier explanation. In the ABSENCE of God, who owns me? The answer is obviously myself, therefore the concept of non-intervention on self-ownership is far easier to justify.

If you start from the unjustified belief that everything must be owned and therefore that someone owns you, then that might be so... but it seems VP was saying that Locke didn't want to accept that as something to be assumed (and why should he?), so therefore went through the self-preservation/God rigmarole.

In the absence of God, the default position for Locke would seem to not be that you own you, but that no-one owns anything. It seems to more become a matter of control than ownership, with that control dependant simply on practical issues: I generally control me, because I generally am better able to dictate what I do than anyone or anything else.

[Vera Politica]

In the absence of God, the default position for Locke would seem to not be that you own you, but that no-one owns anything. It seems to more become a matter of control than ownership, with that control dependant simply on practical issues: I generally control me, because I generally am better able to dictate what I do than anyone or anything else.

Wrong. If Locke could have justified self-proprietorship without recourse to god or christian natural law he would have.

Locke does indeed say you 'own yourself' but he puts a specific restriction: you cannot commit suicide. You cannot commit suicide because while you own yourself (and therefore the extension of your labor) you are a property of god, in the sense that he created you (note, Locke made a distinction between creation and 'making' the 'making' of objects has ametaphysical change and makes them your property. The ownership god has of the individual is not subject to natural or civil law, nor is it a state of war).

However, the way in which Locke justified a NATURAL right to property is by the DUTY of self-preservation. This duty can only exist if you cannot dispose of yourself, and thus owe an obligation to god. Since you have a duty of self-preservation THEN you can appropriate property. You enter into contract with society in order to protect your right to property which is your right to self preservation, and by the contract is inferred all your civil rights which are an extension of your right to property which is an extension to your duty and right to self-preservation.

Thus, without god you could dispose of yourself, at will. Thus, you would have no duty o self-preservation and no natural right to the appropriation of property.

[Findeton]

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:22 am
Quote:
In the absence of God, the default position for Locke would seem to not be that you own you, but that no-one owns anything. It seems to more become a matter of control than ownership, with that control dependant simply on practical issues: I generally control me, because I generally am better able to dictate what I do than anyone or anything else.


Wrong. If Locke could have justified self-proprietorship without recourse to god or christian natural law he would have.

Locke does indeed say you 'own yourself' but he puts a specific restriction: you cannot commit suicide. You cannot commit suicide because while you own yourself (and therefore the extension of your labor) you are a property of god, in the sense that he created you (note, Locke made a distinction between creation and 'making' the 'making' of objects has ametaphysical change and makes them your property. The ownership god has of the individual is not subject to natural or civil law, nor is it a state of war).

However, the way in which Locke justified a NATURAL right to property is by the DUTY of self-preservation. This duty can only exist if you cannot dispose of yourself, and thus owe an obligation to god. Since you have a duty of self-preservation THEN you can appropriate property. You enter into contract with society in order to protect your right to property which is your right to self preservation, and by the contract is inferred all your civil rights which are an extension of your right to property which is an extension to your duty and right to self-preservation.

Thus, without god you could dispose of yourself, at will. Thus, you would have no duty o self-preservation and no natural right to the appropriation of property.

First of all, no one should make a political-economic argument out of the BELIEF that such a thing called "god" does exist.

Civil rights like the right to vote, the right to have unions or the right to a minimun free education come from the aim of a democratic society, from the idea that all women and men should have the same political power... and that idea is a good idea because there is and will never be a reason why some people should have more political power than the rest. Civil rights like a minimun wage or the right to have vacations also come from the idea that as our society is developed enough to afford everyone to have those rights, it would be inhuman not to grant the whole society those rights. And it would be inhuman because it would be cruel and i wouldn't like to live in such a cruel society.

I see no reason why should we involve in the civil rights discussion the belief that Ra is god, witches make "real" magic, Superman exists, a baseball cap is orbiting in a 10^99 light-years radio around our sun, the earth was created 4,000 years ago or the belief that we are more than simple atoms following the laws of physics.

As i've explained civil rights without the need of a god or a religious belief, if you want to defend that there's a need for a god in order to support civil rights, you should point out the errors of my arguments.

[soron]

This duty is entailed because all individuals are PROPERTY OF GOD, and therefore do not have the right to dispose of themselves.

That's a rather absurd notion imho. I once listened to a radio talkshow who had invited the bishop of Wuerttemberg, Eberhard Renz (back then).
The issue at question was why god allowed man to do evil if god could just "make man do good". The bishop's reply was (paraphrasing) that god didn't intend man to be his puppet but rather make his own choices - actually choose between good and evil.
To me, this seems to contradict the idea of an individual being property of god, as well as the idea of doing god's will "because he told me to".
Man is self-governed, responsible for his own actions, and therefore also holder of his own property rights.

[Vera Politica]

As i've explained civil rights without the need of a god or a religious belief, if you want to defend that there's a need for a god in order to support civil rights, you should point out the errors of my arguments.

Ok, so if I got your argument down correctly, you are saying that civil liberties 'developed' with economic progress. Sure, granted, but this is simply a historical correlation.

Then you went on to say that these civil liberties are granted; and if they weren't it would be 'inhuman'.

Ok, what do you mean by inhuman? You are making a tacit moral assumption here without really explaining yourself.

hat's a rather absurd notion imho. I once listened to a radio talkshow who had invited the bishop of Wuerttemberg, Eberhard Renz (back then).
The issue at question was why god allowed man to do evil if god could just "make man do good". The bishop's reply was (paraphrasing) that god didn't intend man to be his puppet but rather make his own choices - actually choose between good and evil.
To me, this seems to contradict the idea of an individual being property of god, as well as the idea of doing god's will "because he told me to".
Man is self-governed, responsible for his own actions, and therefore also holder of his own property rights.

Locke did not say that man was NOT the holder of his own property right. Locke agreed that man has ownership in himself. I am not making any absurd notions, I am simply stating what Locke said (and he is, after all, the founder of liberalism and pretty much the father figure of the federalists, the levellers, etc). Now if you want to understand the difference between property in the state of nature or civil society and property between God and man, you need to look at Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding where he makes an explicit difference between the labor of man and the labor of god. So when god labored for 7 days and created man, man was the property of god, but endowed with reason as to know the moral laws of god in nature (the law of nature) from which man derives his property right through and extension of his applied labor. Reason is free, and as such man can appropriate his own property, including himself (but he still remains a property to god, but NOT in the same sense that an acre of land is your property or in the sense that you yourself are your own property and subject to your own reason).

However, that said, Locke needed this argument in order to claim that you cannot dispose of yourself. Remember, any property can be used and disposed of to the will of the owner. But your own self has a different relationship because you were a creation from god, therefore you are obligated to god in the sense that you are obligated to preserve yourself. So you cannot commit suicide.

If you are obligated to preserve yourself, then - Locke claims- god made lands in common but endowed man with reason to appropriate property in the natural world so that man can survive and preserve himself.

This is how Locke derived the law of nature. And if you continue reading Locke's Second Treatise of Government You will understand that it is by natural law (property rights) that all civil rights are derived.

That said, we understand how Liberalism created the notion of individual rights (whether civil or natural) by inferring an obligation to god. My point is, can you guys think of any way to justify individual rights WITHOUT an obligation to god? That is, can you assume that you have the right to kill yourself (dispose of your own property) and still infer a right to property?

If not, well, Liberalism as I stated is a colossal failure. As I have held for a long time.

[Findeton]

Ok, so if I got your argument down correctly, you are saying that civil liberties 'developed' with economic progress. Sure, granted, but this is simply a historical correlation.

Then you went on to say that these civil liberties are granted; and if they weren't it would be 'inhuman'.

Ok, what do you mean by inhuman? You are making a tacit moral assumption here without really explaining yourself.

I repeat it to clarify:

Civil rights like the right to vote, the right to have unions or the right to a minimun free education come from the aim of a democratic society, from the idea that all women and men should have the same political power... and that idea is a good idea because there is and will never be a reason why some people should have more political power than the rest. (nothing related to economics or inhuman arguments here)

Civil rights like a minimun wage or the right to have vacations also come from the idea that as our society is developed enough to afford everyone to have those rights, it would be inhuman not to grant the whole society those rights. What's inhuman and what isn't inhuman depends on the morality of each society/person. Morality can come from many sources, for example from religion, but in my case it comes exclusively from the ability to feel empathy for other people.

[Adam_Smith]

However, if we look back to Locke, in order to justify natural property rights, he claimed the duty of self-preservation. This duty is entailed because all individuals are PROPERTY OF GOD, and therefore do not have the right to dispose of themselves.

I do not believe Locke had to declare individuals to be the property of God to justify natural property rights. Indeed, the idea seems self contradictory if God is understood to be a supernatural being. Locke might very plausibly have asserted individual self ownership simply as a given in the state of nature except he might then have to accept a natural right to suicide, (or other self harm such as selling oneself into slavery). I believe that Locke adopted a divine property right to the individual purely as an ad hoc rationale to avoid that conclusion. Do you see that it performs any other role in Locke's theory of property?

[Vera Politica]

ok Findeton, your argument is clarified and, obviously, has no substance.

You've said nothing. What is this arbitrary 'aim of democracy'? Democracy has nothing to do with individual rights. Individual rights is a the liberal variation or liberal-democracy. There are many variations.

@Adam Smith

no, Locke didn't create this as an ad hoc relation. I pointed out that natural property rights are a derivation of the duty to self-preservation. If human are not seen as the "property" of god, then there is no way to derive a duty to preserve one's self. The right to suicide would forfeit all of Locke's derivation. It is quite common, at least for people in political theory, to know that Locke's derivation of rights came from Christian Natural Law.

I have not come across any other justification for rights. Rights seem to be a tacitly assumed idealism, bourgeois idealism to be more specific.

Let's get to the crux: John Locke, The Second Treatise par.6 of ch2- The Law of Nature:

though man have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use, than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order and about his business, they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one anothers pleasure. And being furnishes with the like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one anothers uses

[Quercus Robur]

How about I have rights both because it is impossible for you to understand what I am, so you can only say you are similar to me. Therefore any imposition of you on me on the basis that you are inherently superior would be baseless assumption... although don't confuse that with comparing acts or views as these may be inherently superior/inferior if they may be entirely understood.

God is meant to have taught Christians all that through Jesus, and religions like to tell us that too... but it's a normal sort of idea. You could say our value comes from God in that only if you assume we have a spiritual side can you say that what I am cannot be understood entirely by another.

possessive individualism' where rights are derived from property right, that is ownership over yourself.

from this I think we're probably talking cross purposes Asking why we think we own ourselves is like asking why we think we think... basically it's just a very useful assumption

[Adam_Smith]

@Adam Smith

no, Locke didn't create this as an ad hoc relation. I pointed out that natural property rights are a derivation of the duty to self-preservation. If human are not seen as the "property" of god, then there is no way to derive a duty to preserve one's self. The right to suicide would forfeit all of Locke's derivation. It is quite common, at least for people in political theory, to know that Locke's derivation of rights came from Christian Natural Law.

The phrase "Christian Natural Law" unavoidably reminds be of the gag about "military justice" -- but that's beside the point.

My point was that while Locke may have actually based self ownership on a religious duty of self preservation he would not have needed to do so if he was willing to grant that self ownership could include a right to self destruction, which he wasn't. If it were accepted that unopposed use and disposal of anything is at least temporarily the exercise of ownership then Locke could have argued that in the hypothetical state of nature every individual at some point naturally comes into a state of such ownership in ones self. After this, self ownership becomes permanent unless voluntarily forfeited since no one else could have a natural right to revoke it.

Locke's actual approach leads to religiously based imposed duties and limits on property rights and individual freedom which Jefferson, for example, could not accept even as he otherwise was pleased to borrow Lockean arguments to support his thesis of inalienable, (natural), rights to life, liberty and property.

[Vera Politica]

My point was that while Locke may have actually based self ownership on a religious duty of self preservation he would not have needed to do so if he was willing to grant that self ownership could include a right to self destruction, which he wasn't. If it were accepted that unopposed use and disposal of anything is at least temporarily the exercise of ownership then Locke could have argued that in the hypothetical state of nature every individual at some point naturally comes into a state of such ownership in ones self. After this, self ownership becomes permanent unless voluntarily forfeited since no one else could have a natural right to revoke it.

I have thought of this too, but then realized that natural law would not work if self-proprietorship entailed a right, moreso a duty, to dispose of yourself.

The idea is that land is in common (whether given by god or simply naturally in common) and Locke was trying to find a way to justify the appropriation of property in the state of nature. Thus, he stated that since you have a duty to self-preservation, and in so far as that obligation is met, you have an obligation to the preservation of mankind in general. Thus, the appropriation of property was both NECESSARY since you had a duty of self preservation, and justified because it increased the stock in common for mankind (one if you feed 10 people with ten acres of land, you could feed those same people with one acre of appropriated cultivated private land thereby giving back 9 acres to the common stock).

If you have the ability to dispose of yourself, therefore negated any duty to self-preservation, I fail to see how Locke would justify a right to self-preservation. Where would this right be derived from if not from the duty to god?

That is where the problem is :S

Remember, there can be no derived right from proprietorship before self-preservation. That is, you cannot derive a right to self-preservation from self-proprietorship, self-proprietorship, in property right, is derived from the duty of self-preservation, not the reverse.

That's why I have a tough time with theoretical liberalism. It is, for all intense purposes a bourgeois idealism.

[Adam_Smith]

In a word, classical liberal theory derived civil rights from property rights from an obligation to god.

Where do you derive such ciivil rights?

Very well, upon reconsideration I am ready to concede that in Locke's case his arguments for private property rests upon belief in a duty to God. My initial thought was that if Locke had limited the theological part of his argument to the observation that "all men are created equal" that the principle of divinely ordained equality would by itself establish that no one could have a natural ownership right over another and whether the actual owner was God or, by default, the individual himself would hardly matter. Liberty is justified by the natural equality of all individuals. This, rather than Locke's view, probably better represents the thinking of modern liberals. However, as you point out, a right to property requires argument a bit beyond that made simply for liberty.

That modern liberalism defends property rights less assertively than individual or civil rights likely reflects the circumstance that the non-theological case for property rights is weaker than that for individual liberty. Perhaps the best argument is that private property is initially acquired through the work of the individual in creating it or, in the case of unclaimed resources, discovering it and being first to lay claim. Afterward, ownership can be transferred through voluntary exchange. In this case there is, in fact, no natural obligation to create or preserve property for the general benefit of humankind. However, as Adam Smith argues, individuals are guided by self interest, as by an "invisible hand", in that direction, more or less, anyhow. Where this may not hold due to "market failure" a modern liberal would justify government intervention on the grounds that certain selfish individuals are inflicting actual harm upon others by their actions.

[Oxymoron]

The only rights you own are those that you fight for or are given to you by a more powerful force.

[Rapid]

Rights without an obligation to God are rights with an obligation to the longevity of humanity.

Faith in humanity will replace faith in God as we become more rational.

[MB.]

Rights are first and foremost a legal concept. Like every legal concept they are basicaly arbitrary, but very useful tools for preventing anarchy.

[Lone Gunman]

I've always found the opposite to be an easier explanation. In the ABSENCE of God, who owns me? The answer is obviously myself, therefore the concept of non-intervention on self-ownership is far easier to justify.

With "God owns you", it's far easier to infringe upon those rights, especially if the faith holds a strong voice in politics, by saying "God told me that this was justified".

And the latter to me would not be truly liberal so this is why many liberals are socially progressive and tend to try and keep church and state as far away from each other as possible. This is something I have always stood for as a liberal. People's beliefs in a divine power are so diverse that any government in power should respect that diversity. They can't be swayed too much in one direction.

As for liberalism stemming from property ownership well, I can see how that is one fundamental part of the liberal ideology. I mean a home is something sacred to everyone, it's a basic right for everyone to have some kind of shelter. Having a home, your own space, there is something very empowering and individualistic about that and this is what liberals should stand for. Empowerment of the individual but overall respect for society and the rule of law.

Rights are first and foremost a legal concept. Like every legal concept they are basicaly arbitrary, but very useful tools for preventing anarchy.

Very true. Arbitrary but necessary. If we didn't have these laws and if we didn't interpret and adapt these laws to our lifestyles, there'd be anarchy and who wants that?

Lone Gunman